Huawei, Xiaomi phones beat out the iPhone during China’s recent shopping holiday

Singles’ Day in China, celebrated every November 11 (11/11), is an unofficial holiday for people who are not in a relationship in the country. It takes place during what has become a multi-week shopping festival in China. Reuters cites data from Counterpoint Research which claims that iPhone15 The line was outperformed at the register by phones from domestic phone makers like Huawei and Xiaomi during the holiday shopping period.

In the two weeks from October 30 to November 12, Counterpoint reports that iPhone sales in China declined by 4%. Meanwhile, led by its first 5G flagship series in three years, Huawei’s Singles Day sales increased 66% year-on-year, while Xiaomi’s sales rose 28% year-on-year. during the same period. Thanks to the gains made by these two manufacturers, overall smartphone sales in the country during Singles’ Day increased by 5% year-on-year.

Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro series has electrified the country and injected some nationalism into the domestic smartphone market as Huawei managed to circumvent US sanctions imposed on the manufacturer. The Mate 60 series is powered by the 5G Kirin 9000s chipset which has been manufactured using the 7nm process node owned by China’s largest foundry, SMIC. Foundries using American technology to make cutting-edge chips are not allowed to ship such chips to Huawei.

The iPhone 15 series starts at ¥5,999, which is equivalent to $845.27. The Huawei Mate 60 line is priced at ¥5,499 and up, the equivalent of $774.82, and the Xiaomi 14 line starts at ¥3,999, the equivalent of $563.49.

Last year, Chinese e-commerce platforms Alibaba and JD.com stopped disclosing sales figures from the Singles’ Day shopping period. JD.com said the volume of Apple products sold on its platform during the 2023 shopping festival was more than 10 billion yuan (over $1.39 billion). Xiaomi said its sales across all platforms during the shopping festival reached 22.4 billion yuan ($3.16 billion).